Plymouth trip
A Plymouth trip will take you to the largest city on the southern coast of England, a city with a very strong maritime heritage – the Plymouth port is after all the place where the Pilgrim Fathers set sail for the New World.
Plymouth looked quite different before World War II when it was the target of many Luftwaffe bombs, however you can get a decent idea of how it looked before those dark times by heading east of the Hoe and visiting the restored Barbican area. This is where you can see Tudor houses on cobbled streets that look out across a harbor filled with all manner of fishing trawlers and upmarket yachts. Most of the Tudor and Jacobean buildings have been transformed into galleries, crafts shops and restaurants now, so take your time and explore.
The Plymouth Hoe is a grassy strip of land overlooking Plymouth Sound, legend has it this is where Francis Drake saw the Spanish fleet while playing a game of bowls. After that the area became a favored holiday spot for Victorian aristocracy and the wide promenade is now backed by a plethora of multistoreyed villas and grand hotels.
The area is dominated by Smeaton’s Tower, a seventy foot high, red and white candy-striped ex-lighthouse. Originally the tower was situated fourteen miles offshore, but it was moved here, brick by brick during the 1880s.
The City Museum & Art gallery features a very diverse programme of temporary exhibits, hosting various collection of local history, porcelain and naval art. The Cottonian Collection might be of particular interest to those art lovers interested in paintings, prints and etchings.
What else is usually associated with ports and sailors in general? Well booze, and this is where the Plymouth Gin Distillery comes into play, the oldest gin producer in the world, making the rather nasty tasting liquor since 1793. Nowadays you can take tours past the stills and take a tutored tasting of the products.
There are obviously many more things to do and see in Plymouth, these have been just a few of them, in order to see many more make sure you consider employing our Plymouth car hire services.
